Always the Doctor
by Madman With a Pen
Summary: The Eleventh Doctor finds himself face to face with the First Doctor. But who has brought the two Doctors together? And why? Both versions of the Time Lord set out to discover the culprit in this 50th anniversary tribute!
1. Chapter 1

The grinding of ancient engines, the sound of the winds of time howling through a timeless machine, filled the TARDIS control room. At the console, his sharp features illuminated in the pale blue light, stood the Doctor. He felt about the familiar controls, flicking the occasional switch, turning a dial, pulling a lever. Despite all the remodelling the ship had been through, it still felt the same. Same old TARDIS being piloted by, somewhere beneath that bow tie and floppy hair, the same old Time Lord.

He had just dropped Clara off back home. Wednesday, he'd said. He'd see her Wednesday. If he could remember how to get there. They tended to jut out a little, Wednesdays – set into the middle of the week like that, they created neat little bumps in time, making them much easier for time travellers to spot. Always had to watch out for them though – made Thursdays a nightmare to get to. Several times the TARDIS had tripped on a Wednesday, trying to get to a Thursday and ended up tumbling into Friday or Saturday. The Doctor never could get the hang of Thursdays.

There was silence. The continuous calming breath of the engines suddenly vanished. The rising and falling of the time rotor stopped, the vast central column now utterly still. The Doctor looked up, his eyes wide and darting around beneath his furrowed brow.

"That shouldn't have happened," he muttered. "We're in flight. That definitely should not have happened."

Placing his hand softly on the glass column, he whispered to his time machine.

"What is it, old girl? What's wrong?"

A loud clang filled the room – the Cloister Bell. The TARDIS's emergency alarm. The resting blue light of the control room had been disturbed and replaced with a violent crimson.

"Okay," said the Doctor, more volume to his voice now, "that is definitely not good."

The whole ship lurched, throwing the Doctor off his feet as the TARDIS plummeted into freefall through the time vortex. It was only with a lucky and wild flailing of his arms that the Doctor managed to grab one of the bars around the console platform, stopping himself from being thrown clean off it.

"Not good!" he cried. Shoving his hand into his jacket pocket, he rummaged through its impossibly vast interior, pushing aside playing cards, a rubber duck, a frying pan and a Dalek eye-stalk to find the sonic screwdriver. Pointing it at the console, he pressed the button and the screwdriver responded with a high-pitched squeal and burst of emerald light. Bringing it back up to his eyes, the Doctor checked the readings – the TARDIS seemed to be… on pause. As if something was holding the engine in place, still active but utterly unable to move.

_Okay, haven't seen that before._

Pushing himself away from the railing, the Doctor ran at the console, clinging onto it as soon as it was within reach. His hands dashed over the controls, throwing back all switches and levers. The engines screamed out at him – not their usual, regular grinding, but an agitated screech.

"Sorry, old girl, but if you want to survive the landing, I'm going to have to try the oldest trick in the book…" He grabbed the biggest lever on the console and pulled it back with all his might, sending sparks flying from the controls. "I'm turning you off and on again!"

There was a heavy 'clunk' as the lever fell back and the TARDIS was plunged into darkness.

"Right… that's off," said the Doctor. He gripped the lever again, his hand frozen for a moment. He gulped, not quite knowing what to expect. "Now here's back on again…"

He threw the lever forwards and it slammed into place. A flood of light streamed through the control room, the calm blue returning to the metal chamber, followed by the familiar sound of the engines in motion. The Doctor beamed at his machine as normality resumed.

"Oh, well done, you sexy thing! Now – something just took hold of my TARDIS and stuck its hands in the gears. Let's find out what."

Back at the controls, the Doctor set a landing course. The engines came to a crescendo before falling silent with a whispered 'thud'.

Dashing from the console to the doors, the Doctor wrenched them open and looked out. As soon as he saw his surroundings, he froze, mouth open and eyes wide.

White walls, adorned with roundels, surrounded the TARDIS. A smaller, white, console sat just beyond the threshold. The Doctor recognised this pace all too well.

It was the TARDIS. The TARDIS had landed in the TARDIS – an older version of itself. The first version of itself. This was the TARDIS when the Doctor had first left Gallifrey.

"Excuse me, young man," snapped an old voice that the Doctor had not heard in a very long time, "but I think you had better explain yourself."

"Yes…" the Doctor murmured. "I think there's going to have to be quite a lot of explaining… Doctor."


	2. Chapter 2

"Who are you?" snapped the Doctor – the other Doctor. The younger Doctor, who looked older. The first Doctor.

"Isn't the big blue box a bit of a giveaway?" asked the older Doctor – the one who looked younger.

"I have no idea what that contraption of yours is and I don't much appreciate it being in my ship," said the old man, his eyes keen and piercing as they gazed upon the man he would become.

"You don't recognise it? This is very early for you, isn't it?" said the Doctor.

"What do you mean? You're not speaking much sense, young man," replied the Doctor.

Stepping out of his TARDIS and into its younger incarnation, the Doctor approached the old man who stood before him. His face was so old, the long silver hair swept back from the temples, the skin adorned with lines drawn by a long life. The longest life he had ever had. But the eyes were young. The eyes were windows to the soul of an outcast and a rebel, like a teenager running away from home. In their gaze, there was no trace of the bloodshed or the guilt or the pain that plagued the old eyes of the man in the young body.

"No," said the Doctor. "I'm afraid I'm not. You'll have to get used to that – it's a habit you start to pick up somewhere around Ian and Barbara. By the time Number Four arrives, you'll have mastered it."

"What are you wittering on about?"

"Your future. Something I shouldn't be telling you about, actually – forget everything I just said." The Doctor was looking carefully, engrossed in his intrigue, over the features of his very first body. He almost missed that face. It was him. That was what he really looked like. Most of his life, he had been in that body. It hadn't been thrust upon him, fully grown, like the others. He had grown with it. Sometimes he still felt like that was who he was, deep down, stuck behind a different face and a new outfit.

"Young man, if you do not start explaining yourself soon-"

"I'm you!" said the young man. "You from the future."

"What do you mean?"

"Regeneration – I'm one of your future selves!"

"Oh, are you now?" said the old man, giving a high-pitched laugh through closed lips. The sound of it seemed to light up his future incarnation's face.

"That laugh! I remember that one!"

The old man's gaze shot up at him.

"Young man, tell me, why exactly should I believe you are me, hmm?"

The Doctor gestured to the police box standing behind him.

"Well, you saw the TARDIS appear! That's my TARDIS – your TARDIS, from the future!"

"Then why does it look like that? What have you done to my chameleon circuit?"

"Me? You're to blame for that one, Doctor!"

"Oh, am I now? I must say, I'm still finding very little evidence here to convince me that we are one and the same man."

"Oh, I can't believe I was ever this… stubborn! Okay, listen to me, you have fled Gallifrey in this Type 40 travel capsule, with your granddaughter Susan, because you can't stand the Time Lords' non-intervention rules. You chose the name Doctor because it means 'man who makes people better' while your former best friend now calls himself the Master and is an utter raving lunatic that you're not going to run into for a good few years!"

The first Doctor's eyes widened, his thumbs massaging the lapels of his jacket as his brain processed the words he would one day be speaking. The older Doctor – the man in the young body – broke into a laugh at the sight of his former self.

"What is it?" the first Doctor asked.

"Nothing. Just – the lapels. Oh, I remember that!"

Something in the old man's hard expression seemed to soften a little as he accepted the future Doctor's identity. What other explanation could there be? It wasn't completely beyond reason, after all.

"So, my good man, tell me – how far down the line are you, hmm? How many lives later do you come from?"

"Ten regenerations – eleventh Doctor," said the Doctor.

"My, my, my – there are eleven of me now! I suppose I must look a decade younger with every one of them to get to your stage," said the other Doctor.

"Oh, look who's talking, grandpa! I'm the Doctor, but no running down corridors, I forgot my Zimmer frame!"

"Zimmer frame? What are you talking about?"

"Right, of course, sorry. Earth stuff – suppose you've not really got there yet. Never mind."

"Yes, well none of this prattle is particularly important. Tell me – what precisely are you doing on my ship at this point in its timeline?"

"Right, that, yes," said the eleventh Doctor. "No time to waste on the whole catching up thing – matter at hand. The TARDIS ran into a little trouble – something was stopping the engines, froze them mid-flight and pulled the ship into freefall. I took back control, followed the trajectory and ended up here."

"How very peculiar," muttered his younger self. "The TARDIS was having some similar problems on my end. I have been transmatted, you see – the whole ship has been moved in time and space by some external force. I was going to leave but I was prevented from dematerialising."

"Meaning if I hadn't intervened, the TARDIS would have been pulled full force into itself at an earlier point in its own timeline."

"Why, if that had happened, the collision would have torn both ships apart, creating a paradox."

"Yes… the TARDIS can't stop itself from existing. And a paradox involving two exploding TARDISes could be catastrophic. It would tear time apart, twice!"

"The very fabric of time and space could be threatened," said the first Doctor. "Who would attempt such a thing?"

"Who could? Who has the ability to interfere with both our TARDISes?"

"Only a being of extreme power. They must be able not only to reach into the workings of the TARDIS itself, but through my own timeline."

"Well, I don't know about you, Doctor, but I'm starting to wonder exactly who we're dealing with here. So what do you say we take a look outside?"

"Not yet," said the first Doctor. "I've not been able to get the scanner working."

"The scanner? When was I ever so careful?" said the eleventh.

"And how have I become so impetuous? Hmm?" The first turned away from his future self, casting his eyes towards the door at the back of the console room. "Anyway, before I go anywhere, I must check on Susan."

"Susan?" the Doctor repeated. His voice was suddenly quiet, his brow furrowing.

"Yes, Susan. Your granddaughter! You do remember her, don't you?"

"Yes," said the eleventh, rubbing at his eyes. "How could I ever forget Susan?"

"Is she not with you as well?" asked the first, turning back to the other Doctor.

"No. Not anymore."

"What happened?"

"Oh, nothing. Just… you know how kids are. They all grow up eventually, have to leave home," said the eleventh Doctor. "And we have to let go."

"Yes. Quite right of course." And with that, the first Doctor hurried off and through the door, his future self slowly following him.

Beyond the threshold, a sparse white lounge awaited them. A curved recliner had been lowered from one of the walls and on its soft surface lay a figure all too familiar to both Doctors. Her features were young and beautiful in a strange, ethereal way. Her eyelids were gently shut and her breathing had grown slow and regular. Both Doctors spoke at once upon seeing her.

"Susan?"

The first Doctor strode over to his granddaughter, placing his hand on her forehead.

"What happened to her?" asked the eleventh.

"When I tried to start the ship there was a sort of crash, like the TARDIS was being pushed back. The poor child fell unconscious."

"Interesting," muttered the eleventh as he produced his sonic screwdriver from within his pocket. He walked over to where Susan was lying and scanned her with the device.

"What is that contraption?" asked the first Doctor.

"Sonic screwdriver… you'll get there eventually…" He checked the readings on the device, before dropping it back into his pocket. "She's been placed in a remote cryo-sleep. She'll be fine as long as we leave her be."

"It seems whatever has brought us together is only interested in the Doctors, then."

"But why? What is it? What could want both of us?"

"I've no idea, but I certainly intend to find out," said the first Doctor.

"That's the spirit, Doctor! Come on – let's take a peek outside."


End file.
